


I Drew a Line for You

by Brokenpitchpipe



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Emotional Sex, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 16:11:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18663814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brokenpitchpipe/pseuds/Brokenpitchpipe
Summary: "What are you doing here, Steve?" Peggy asks."I'm," Steve says. "Living."Peggy smiles. But it's a smile he recognizes, a smile that means she's guessed at the truth and she's guessed right. "No," she says, "you're not."





	I Drew a Line for You

This, Steve thinks, is certain.

Peggy's shirt ruffling against the ceiling fan's lazy wind. Her fingertips against the knit sweater over his chest, barely pressing but holding sure. A record player, a song from a time he never had the chance to remember, caught between the time he lived and the time he-

Is _sacrificed_ the right word?

His heart clutches itself, exhausted, aches. He forces the memories away and they return, reluctantly, to their iron-clad box. He tightens his hold around Peggy's arms, tries to listen to the record a little louder, let it drown the rest out of his mind. And soon enough, his fingertips go slack, Peggy's blouse sinks back down, loose again over her shoulders, and he sighs against her neck. He's home. He's _home._

This, he knows, is certain.

Peggy pulls her head off his chest, looks up at him. He looks down and presses his lips to her forehead. He feels rather than sees her smile, mouth moving over the soft fabric of his shirt. It barely makes a sound, just the slide of lips over cotton.

"Steve," she says, and something in her voice makes Steve's heart stop. "What are you doing?"

Steve flounders, losing the easy rhythm. His feet fumble, his heel trips over her toe.

"I," he says, "I don't understand."

"What are you doing here, Steve?" Peggy asks- _asks,_ this time. She looks up at him, meets his eyes, asks with them in the same way she tells him she knows exactly what he's thinking without having to say a word.

"I'm," Steve says. "Living."

Peggy smiles. But it's one of those smiles she gives, one he recognizes, one she makes when she knows there's a truth, she's guessed at it and she's guessed right. "No," she says, "you're not. Not without him."

_Not without-_

Steve's standing on a metal balcony, fire under his feet, Bucky's voice ricocheting between his ears, back-and-forth-back-and-forth until he can't hear, he can't see for the noise, he can't breathe. He presses his nose into Peggy's hair, closes his guilty eyes, and breathes in the soft, gentle sweetness of her hair. It's enough of an answer for Peggy; her fingers push against his waist, gentle but firm. He's got no choice but to follow, and he steps back, lets her decide the space between them.

"I suppose the proper question," Peggy says softly, fingertips sliding down his chest until they drop at her sides, "is what are you _still_ doing here?"

He stares at her helplessly, and she takes pity on him, sighing and reaching up.

"I see you, Steve." Peggy's delicate touch to his hair sends it falling down, the still-unfamiliar part down the middle giving way to a single swell, too old and too stubborn to move.

"Course you see me," Steve says. "I'm right here, Peg."

"I see you," Peggy murmurs. She sighs and turns her head. Steve's heart stutters; Peggy says things eye-to-eye or not at all.

"Pegs," he says.

"But I see someone else, too," she whispers. She's afraid to say it, Steve realizes, and their slow, gentle rock to and fro falls away. She pulls her hands back, wipes one palm over her eyes. "I see someone I don't know. I see someone who doesn't know me."

"We've both changed," Steve says, fingernails digging into his palm. Peggy's not one for comforting touches, particularly when she's making a point. But Steve's not one for listening quietly. "We have time now," he says, "we got all the time in the world to know each other."

"No amount of time will bring us back," Peggy says, and Steve- "No amount of time will bring you back."

It hits him. It's a vibranium blade against the iron box and it hits hard, the blade sings, it ripples and rings and shakes, and Steve's shaking too.

"I'm," he says. "Peggy, I'm."

"Not the man," Peggy says, "that I fell in love with."

The music hits too, now. It's a slow _one-a-two-a-one-a-two,_ but their feet stay in place and their hearts beat out of time, off balance. She's still not facing him, hands clutching her chest, eyes blinking too fast as she stares into the fireplace. The departure from her usual headstrong, no-nonsense self is enough to tell Steve's heart that she really, truly, means this.

"I'm still," he tries, and they both hear defeat. "I'm still me, Peg."

"You're you," Peggy agrees, "whoever you are now. And it suits you."

Steve wants to say, to scream, _no it doesn't, it never did, it never has,_ but.

His shoulders ache with muscles tensed by instinct now rather than will. His jaw sits tight, clamped shut, teeth locked together- and it takes a concentrated effort to lay his tongue flat and part his teeth.

"I don't want," Steve starts, but he doesn't know the answer. "I want," he tries again. "I want to be- I want-"

"Love," Peggy answers for him.

It's Steve's turn to face away, because the word alone is almost too much, but he can't bring himself to see her face when she says it.

"I see you," she says again, not bothering this time to wipe her tears away, "I see how you look at this place, look at me."

"I look at you like you're home," he says.

"You look at me, at this," Peggy says, "like you want to love." And she bites her lip, blood-red and perfect to the last curve. "But you don't. Not all of you does. There's a part of you that's not here, not always."

Steve's left hand itches for a barrier, a shield, anything to protect him from the bare truth that rips him raw, strips back the layers he's built up, tears at the corners of his iron box unto the pins rattle and the sides tremble and whine and crack-

And out of the crack slides a memory, bright white-hot and painful.

_Natasha, pulling a tumbler of Asgardian mead out of his hands, smiling kindly yet sadly. Saying, "drinking the rest of this won't change anything."_

_Steve, saying, "that's not comforting at all, Romamoff, that's mean."_

_Natasha taking a sip of the drink, shuddering, saying, "the truth always is."_

He hasn't let himself remember her face in so long; the days stretch now, enough so that each one feels like a week. He's told himself he's just enjoying this new, borrowed time, this second chance, savoring each and every moment. But now Natasha's face swims in his mind's eye, almost closed off, but smiling just for him, hiding and sharing secrets, sometimes in equal measure.

“I,” he says.

But one crack stretches into two, and another memory surfaces, searing through his heart, cauterizing as it goes.

_Sam, passing him a punch card for a coffee shop Steve's never heard of, saying, “I know we never bet on it, and I don't have any cash, but I'm an honest enough man to admit when I'm wrong.”_

_Steve, folding the punch card between his fingers, saying, “thank you.”_

_Sam, shrugging and saying, “he's still got a long way to go, you know that?”_

He’d spent five years pushing Sam’s voice out of his mind, three days avoiding his eyes, and now a year avoiding his memory. And now he’s here, almost, standing beside him like that’s where he’s meant to be, his left-hand-man.

The fireplace swells, as does his chest as he gasps, sucks down air that's not enough, not _enough._

_Bucky standing by the out-of-place platform, all white and shining and official, sitting pretty smack-dab in the middle of the forest. Bucky standing uneven, saying, “I'm gonna miss you, pal.”_

_And Steve-_

_Steve, seeing a chance, a lucky roll, a coin toss loaded against him. Seeing a brush of stubble on his chin, leaving the faintest trail of pink behind; seeing a strong, callused hand on his own, stronger perhaps than even him; seeing whispered promises, poems, secrets. Seeing a hope, a love-_

_A risk._

_Steve, seeing a home, a family, love he knows, love about which he is certain. Seeing a future, a past, a life._

_Steve, seeing a risk or a certainty. A sure life or a fleeting, barely-there possibility of love. Seeing the choices. Choosing-_

Peggy catches him as he falls, as his knees buckle and his world-renowned resistance snaps in half, collapses. His knees hit the carpet- they'd bought it together, the two of them, and Steve had tried to pay with money the likes of which the shopkeeper had never seen. They'd laughed, later, but Steve had sat awake that night, burned from the stark reminder of just how little he’d belonged here.

"You do know you're just proving my point," Peggy grunts, pushing him upright. He braces his arms behind his back, holds himself aloft, treading water.

When he opens his eyes, she's there.

“What was I like?” she asks, as he wipes his eyes and catches his breath.

“Not a bit different.”

"I bet I told you to your face, just how dramatic you are."

"You're no better." Steve sighs, remembering. "You told me the world had changed, and we couldn't go back." He shakes his head. "But I'm here, I made it back."

"You did," Peggy says. "You did. But you don't belong here. You don't belong," she takes a breath, "with me."

"Don't," Steve whispers, "please."

"Steve." And she shakes her head, perfect curls falling apart, shielding her face. "Steve, I don't think this is meant to be."

"Nothing is _meant to be,"_ Steve insists. "We can make our life- we can build our life however we want it to be."

"That only works if you actually want-" Peggy stills, wipes her eyes, "what you build."

“Peggy.” It's not a question, it's not an answer. It's a mix between a plea and an apology, it's halfway between a call for help and a goodbye.

“Why are you here, Steve?” she asks again, no grandeur, no mystery. There's no dance of eye contact, no hesitating touch. They sit side by side, each staring at the fireplace, looking for answers.

“I don't know,” he says.

“You had a choice to make,” Peggy says. “You made this one. What was the other?”

“Why'd you assume there were only two?”

“You were dramatic enough to drive a plane into the ocean. Of course you boiled it down to two options.”

“It was stay or go, there were no alternatives.”

“And why were you so afraid to go back, I wonder?”

“Afraid?”

“Oh, don't go telling me you weren't,” Peggy says sharply, almost herself.

No, he thinks, after a moment's pause. Not almost. This is her, now. Just like Steve, she's changed too. She has less to prove, less of a temper. She'll always be in there, the Peggy that Steve remembers, but. She'll only get harder and harder to find.

“You still are,” she adds. “If you weren't, you wouldn't-” And she gestures to him, slumped on the floor, reduced to his knees by mere memories.

“We both moved on.” Peggy's voice barely carries over the crackle of the fire. “And the harder we try to go back-”

“I know,” Steve says before she can finish, and she looks at him. And against everything, he smiles. “I know.”

* * *

He finds the suit tucked into the back of the closet. It’s folded neatly in a cardboard box, as if it had been waiting for him all this time. It still fits, and the part of him that’s surprised is chided by the part of him that says _it’s only been a year._

He’d come to her dressed in a costume, as if he’d always been in this century, as if coming home to her was part of his daily routine. And now she looks at him, at the odd leather and plastic and metal adorning his suit, and Steve knows there’s no returning. He doesn’t belong here, and the sight of him in this suit only cements that fact.

He lets the quantum suit materialize over the blue, over the star, and Peggy gasps. He lets her look, lets her touch the plating, trail her finger over the logo on the shoulder, bite her lip.

“You’ve really had a life,” she murmurs. “And so have I,” she adds, before he can say anything else. “And you’d better not do anything to ruin it for me, or I’ll make you regret it.”

“Gonna find your way into the future, just to kick my ass?”

Peggy nods. “Don’t believe I won’t.”

Steve smiles- it’s less of a sad smile now, more of a real one. They’ve had their time together, he knows that. They’ve run their course. He tests the gloves out, lets the helmet materialize over his face. The glass comes between them, another barrier. He undoes the cover over the button on his thumb. Hesitates.

“Peggy,” he says, and she tenses. “I love you.”

She takes his hand. “I loved you too, Steve,” she murmurs. “Truly. I did.”

“Peggy,” Steve says, and she presses the button.

* * *

He feels himself shrink down, sub-atomic, squeezing through the particles that make up the air, the dust, the smell of home. He closes his eyes, sees the glow through his eyelids, wills it to stop. His suit, his wristband, the quantum technology- it’s a year older now, and he doesn’t want to think about what that means for its structural integrity.

He doesn’t want to think about what’s on the other side, either.

And then he’s standing, lurching forward, stumbling on unfamiliar glass and tile, suit too heavy.

“-what I said, Bruce, you get to goddamn work,” he hears, and Sam’s turned away from him, screaming himself hoarse at Bruce. Bruce holds up a green hand, shielding himself from Sam’s tirage, and presses another hand to the control panel, desperately.

“Stop,” he hears Bucky’s voice, urgently, and suddenly Bucky’s there too, still clad in black, sprinting like his life depends on it. _“Stop-_ you’re gonna send him _back.”_

And the voices all stop.

Steve steps off of the platform, the quantum helmet regressing back below his neck.

“Steve?” Bucky calls, jogging back over from the control panel. Sam and Bruce hang back, watching.

“How long was I gone?” Steve says, wiping the sweat from his brow. Bucky frowns, reaching up for his hair. With one wave of his metal hand, the weak part down the middle disappears and it all falls to one side. Steve’s heart hurts as it beats in his chest, too fast and too hard- and Bucky looks back at him and Steve-

“You tell me, pal,” Bucky says.

“We’ve been waiting for about ten minutes,” Sam calls helpfully, and Bucky frowns over at him, breaking the moment, destroying the chance. “Did you stop at the store for groceries on the way home?”

“Or something,” Steve says, not looking away from Bucky.

Bucky looks back at him, frowns, eyes suspicious. But all he does is clear his throat and say, “okay, let’s get this packed up.” He raises an eyebrow. “And let’s get you a shower, yeah?”

Tony’s cabin- Pepper’s cabin now, Steve supposes- is a forty minute drive away from the city, and they spend most of it in silence. It’s not unusual now, Steve notices- half remembers. After the countless battles and fights and tirades and the final, ultimate triumph, everyone’s too exhausted to do much but sit in relieved silence with their loved ones.

Or in Bruce’s case, sit in silence.

They’re the last ones from the funeral to go, and so Bruce drives them all back to the complex. Sam spends the trip obsessively Googling in the front seat, piecing together the five years he’s missed. Steve remembers now, none of them would have had enough time to play catch-up. Not with the immediate fight following their return, the business with Tony’s funeral, getting the stones back where they belong.

Bucky spends it lying on his back beside Steve, legs crossed, feet braced against the window, his head on Steve's side. Steve can't tell if he's asleep or pretending, but three speed bumps at seventy miles an hour don't wake him up. 

It’s too easy to step into the footprints he’d left behind, back into pace with this time, with this world.

The complex is just how Steve remembers it; disheveled, uncared for. The need for a professional staff, for cleaners, for the air of superiority- it had all dissolved, so suddenly. They pass by rooms still dirty with clothes, old food containers, trash lining the carpets.

Steve tries to split off, to find his own sleeping quarters for the night, but Bucky grabs his shoulder tight and dangerous, muttering, “don’t even think about it.”

And that’s how they end up together, stripping off funeral clothes and tactical gear in absolute silence.

Steve stills when he realizes he doesn’t remember the layout of this room, the Avengers Complex sleeping quarters. He’d rarely used them in the first place, but after a year of the same house and the same routine, memory of any other living space had slipped from his mind entirely.

“Over here,” Bucky says quietly, tapping the dresser that’s tucked into the corner of the room.

“Thanks,” Steve says, hurrying to it before Bucky can see his face. He tugs the dresser drawer open and starts fishing through for something that’ll fit him, grateful that he at least still has normal hips.

“So,” Bucky says, apparently content with letting the silence die entirely. “How long did you stay with her?”

Steve’s fingers twitch, and the dresser drawer handle cracks under his touch. It’s wooden, it splinters and crumbles under his hand. He winces, pulling away.

Bucky huffs, folding his arms over his bare chest. “That long?”

“Are you angry?”

“Why’d you come back?”

Steve drops the remnants of the dresser handle onto the carpet. They land without a sound, cracked and already forgotten.

“Would you rather I hadn’t?” he says, turning around and picking splinters out of his palm.

“That’s not the point.” Bucky reaches over and snatches Steve’s hand with his metal one, holds it steady as he picks out the wood on his own. “Stop answering questions with questions.”

“You’re one to talk,” Steve says.

“Do what I say, not what I do.”

Steve kisses him.

Bucky drops his hand in an instant, all worry forgotten. Steve reaches, hand free, and grabs Bucky’s hair. Splinters dig into his skin, sharp and tiny and painful, and as Bucky’s hands cup his face in turn he whimpers and he doesn’t know whose hands are at fault.

He doesn’t make the decision. Bucky’s pulling him back, they’re both naked from the waist up now and Steve feels Bucky’s body heat swelling up to engulf him as Bucky drags him down to the bed. They land, noisy and awkward, Bucky’s back on the mattress, and Steve pulls away long enough to breathe before Bucky’s grabbing him, forcing him back down.

There’s something behind Bucky’s movements, something more than the standard _want_ that should drive him. His hands are frantic, trembling as they touch up and down Steve's chest, his jawline, his hair, back down to his sides. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Steve gasps, thumbs pushing two long locks of Bucky’s hair out of his eyes. “Not anymore.”

Bucky’s face tightens. He lets one hand caress Steve’s cheek, slides the other around Steve’s back to keep him connected, close.

“I promise,” Steve says, and Bucky’s chest shudders. Steve presses a hand to it, soft, careful.

“Why did you come back.” Bucky’s voice, so strained, sends Steve aching.

And for the first time, he’s not afraid of the answer. “I didn’t belong,” he says simply, shaking his head. “Not anymore.”

“But you wanted,” Bucky says.

“I _want,”_ Steve says, the hand on Bucky’s chest pressing down. Bucky’s gut tenses and a sob leaves him, though he doesn’t allow his tears the dignity. They cling to his eyelashes, stubborn, just like him.

Steve bends down to kiss them away, white-hot salt on his lips.

“I knew she loved me,” Steve whispers. “I didn’t know you _do.”_

And a minute later Bucky’s funeral slacks and Steve’s tactical pants are gone, lying in a crumpled heap somewhere between the foot of the bed and neither-of-them-care-anymore.

Steve braces his hands on the mattress to keep himself aloft as Bucky leans up leisurely to put his mouth on Steve’s chest, stubble scratching soft and pleasant over his skin, pressing his lips wherever he can find room. He only has so much strength, though, and soon enough his trembling arms fail him and he falls onto his side, letting the mattress bounce.

“Thought you were supposed to lift cars with your pinky finger,” Bucky murmurs.

“Thought you were supposed to be a charmer,” Steve whispers right back. Bucky smacks the tuft of hair that’s fallen over his eyes, and it fluffs up before falling right back down. He scowls at it, and Steve kisses his neck to distract him.

“I thought,” Bucky murmurs, breath catching in his throat as Steve’s tongue finds its way to his jawline, “I thought- you were supposed to stay.”

Steve kisses the bulge of his throat where it vibrates at his words, thick and warm and coarse under his tongue. Bucky’s mouth drops open, and a sound slides out that sends heat down Steve’s spine.

“I did,” Steve admits, and Bucky howls. He closes his mouth over those lips, drinks Bucky’s grief down like he deserves it, feels it as it slithers inside every crack in his body he’s tried to ignore. He pulls away and Bucky looks at him, eyes red-rimmed. “It didn’t work,” he says, shaking his head. “And I’m not going back.”

It’s Bucky’s turn to kiss him, to reach, to grab his face on either side, to kiss him desperately, like it’s his last chance.

“Please,” he hears Bucky whispering, “please.”

They kiss, and they kiss, and they _kiss._ And when Steve’s finally inside him, Bucky cries. Steve holds him, tries to kiss the tears away as they fall. But they number too many, and Steve numbers just one, and so he lets them come as they rock together.

The sounds of Bucky’s soft little gasps, the _shuff-shuff_ of skin sliding back and forth over fabric, the ever so slight _plip_ of tears hitting the sheets- each one hits Steve’s ear in turn and they all push him forward, wrap their arms around him, welcome him home.

“Home,” he says, as the word comes to him.

“What,” Bucky says, cracking an eye open to look up at him.

“You,” Steve says. “You’re home.”

“I haven’t had one in-” Bucky breaks off, gasping, and Steve rides through it. “Years,” Bucky finishes, shallow breath bookending the words.

“No,” Steve says, “you’re _my_ home.”

Bucky’s feet slam into the sheets, he clenches his eyes shut, shudders, and Steve holds him tight, so tight. He matches Bucky’s suddenly desperate rhythm, kisses him hard, tries to tell whose tears are whose, and realizes he doesn’t care just as Bucky comes in his arms. He’s not far behind, and Bucky jerks in his arms as his fingertips dig into Bucky’s waist harder than they probably should, as his lips part, his eyes close. Bucky kisses the corner of his mouth and they fall together, tangled in one another’s arms.

It’s how they wake, hours later, and it’s how they remain through the night. Bucky’s words land in his ear, against his neck, over his own two lips. He gives his own words in return, and Bucky takes them.

They fall asleep again as the sun rises, as the earth turns, inevitable. And Steve wakes before Bucky does, watches the way his breath pushes his hair away from his face, how it falls back every time. Watches Bucky’s hands tense and release, as he crawls his way through unconsciousness. Watches the way Bucky’s leg lies over his own, weight too much, feels his own foot lose feeling, realizes he doesn’t care.

They’re here now. He’s here now. Bucky is here with him, naked, sleeping. And Steve doesn’t know what that means, but he realizes- as the sun ducks below the edge of the window, spreading amber morning light over them both, making Bucky’s hair glow chocolate and gold- he _knows._

The sunlight makes Bucky shift. It’s not enough to rouse him, just enough to tell his body that something’s changed, something’s new. It’s unscripted, unwritten, and neither of them have a way to know what’s coming next.

But nothing, Steve knows, is certain.

**Author's Note:**

> wow can u guys believe marvel finally finished steve's arc and made him definitively accept his place in the future and let his past go :) wasnt that amazing  
> they had me worried for a moment there but haha marvel never disappoints
> 
> for something less Serious and Sad, check out my other endgame fic feat. 2012 Steve [here!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18667030)  
> 


End file.
